When an emergency situation strikes an area, friends and family of individuals that are in the area often become concerned about the individual. Ideally, the individual would be able to call their friends or family to notify them if the individual is safe. However, because of the need to coordinate emergency services, individuals are often requested to refrain from making calls, in order to reserve available telephone bandwidth for the emergency services. Also, telephone and text service providers may prioritize or provide only limited access to their services.
In an effort to assist individuals with conveying their status without using telephone lines, some services have been developed that enable an individual to convey their status via the Internet, which is often accessible via the cellular communication network of an individual's mobile communication device. For instance, Facebook® operates a service during emergency situations that enables an individual to indicate that they are safe, which notifies each of the individual's followers of their status. In such cases, an individual can quickly convey that they are safe to a vast number of friends and family, without tying up a telephone line.
However, such systems still rely on Internet and/or cellular communication services. In many situations, the bandwidth of a cellular communication network or Internet connection may be exceeded due to the vast number of individuals seeking to use the service at once. Furthermore, there may be cases where such communication methods may be unavailable, such as due to the emergency situation. For example, a loss of power may prevent usage of a cellular communication or Internet access point. In such cases, there are currently no systems available for conveying an individual's status, to ensure their safety to their friends and family.
Thus, there is a need for a technical solution whereby an individual's safety status during an emergency situation may be conveyed to others that does not rely on the Internet or cellular communication networks.